Judge: Rutherford County must change juvenile detention practices

Ten children, all younger than 13, were arrested April 15, 2016, at Hobgood Elementary School in Murfreesboro, Tenn., after police saw video of an earlier neighborhood fight on social media.(Photo: Helen Comer, The (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) Daily News Journal)

A federal judge said this week that Rutherford County must stop detaining children for minor offenses and ordered the county to change its intake procedures.

On Monday, Chief U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville issued an injunction against Rutherford County, ordering the county to align itself with state law. He set a June 1 court date to check in on the county's progress.

"In Rutherford County, a juvenile who may not meet the prerequisites (in state law) may nevertheless be locked in a cell, unable to leave, solely because the intake officer believed it was in the child’s best interest," Crenshaw wrote in a memorandum.

The ruling is a win for five children and their families who have filed several lawsuits against the county over its juvenile justice system dating back to July 2016.

"Tennessee law provides that children can only be detained in limited circumstances, but Rutherford County has ignored these protections for years," Wesley Clark, a lawyer for the children and their families, said in a statement.

Their allegations stem from the April 2016 arrest of four Hobgood students on school grounds by Murfreesboro Police officers, a case that quickly became controversial and drew scrutiny of the police response — particularly the choice to handcuff some of the students involved. However, two other students who where held in detention in other cases also filed lawsuits.

The judge ordered changes to Rutherford's "filter system," the policy used to determine whether a child stays in custody for 72 hours or more before a judge determines if there is probable cause to hold the child.

State law says juvenile offenders be released except for in specific circumstances, such as when an offense results in serious bodily injury or the child has a significant court history.

But the Rutherford policy gave detention officers wider discretion to hold a child, including in some circumstances if they deemed the child was a "true threat to themselves or the community."

Crenshaw did not grant an injunction on the families' claim that the county's arrest practices were unconstitutional.

But he did write that two of the children should never have been arrested. He wrote that Rutherford County decided to hold the children in jail for up to three nights when they should have been released to their parents.

"Plaintiffs argue that children in Rutherford County are suffering irreparable harm every day through Rutherford County’s illegal detention of them in a secure facility," the judge wrote, adding that he agreed.

Though just a handful of children are involved in the pending lawsuits, one of their lawyers, Kyle Mothershead, said in a statement that many more have been impacted.

"We believe that potentially thousands of children have been illegally incarcerated over the years pursuant to the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center’s rogue policies," he said.

Lawyer Nicholas Christiansen, who represents the county, noted the lawsuits are still in their early stages.

"Rutherford County respects the court and will comply with the preliminary injunction as entered," he said in an email. "Rutherford County also respects the rights of all of its citizens, including its juvenile citizens, and will continue to do so as it works through this matter."